designs,decorating,life

Hello! my name is Tamar, I am a jewelry and accessory designer behind Nest Pretty Things, we are a husband and wife team and sell online through our website and Etsy shops and wholesale to over 50 shops around the world, my husband Ronen manages the business side and I am the designer and maker.
We have a lovely studio in Burlington Vermont and live near by in Shelburne, a beautiful little village right by Lake Champlain, we now have three sons in college (24,22,20) and the sweetest cat Isabel.
I love to decorate (you will always find me working on some project or other), cook and garden (I wish our VT season wasn't so short) and travel.

December 2008

December 29, 2008

Here are a few new earrings in my shop,I am working on expanding my jewelry collection and added some new glitzy ones this weekend. All the components are vintage and I especially love the earring wires, they are very rare vintage gold plated with an attached jet black Saworzki crystal.

Pink Rosaline, beautiful old fashioned color:

Red oval Swavorski crystal rings:Vintage glass stones in black and opal long earrings:You can shop for them here:)xox

December 25, 2008

I have been moving the furniture around downstairs in the kids space which is slowly developing into a nicely arranged teen zone, I really like it now, the room looks so much better and MUCH bigger! I still am not very fond of the tiles (came with the house..) but I think the overall look works. We are planning on painting (the color now is a weird putty green) I think I will keep the space light, probably paint it a linen white and have one wall in a bright color, maybe a bright red or bright yellow??any ideas?I also made some new pillows, love the striped fabric from Ikea!Here is another angle

And my son's bedroom is our temporary bedroom while our in laws are occupying our bedroom for the holidays.(Oh yes, I was asked him to clarify this: these are our girly beddings not his...and ooops...yes, the map is upside down...)Tomorrow I'll be spending the day with my mother in law, we are planning on shopping and going out for lunch and maybe even catching a movie!! what fun! I can't wait!

December 21, 2008

Today is Daniel's 16th birthday!!! Happy birthday my sweet baby!I made him his favorite chocolate chip banana birthday cakeand since his birthday was on Hanukkah this year we had a wonderful big celebrationthe kids were busy making Hanukkah ornamentsand enjoying Hanukkah giftsthose are my 3 boys in the back,my 3 nieces and sister in law in the front, and my father in law enjoying the happy children.It was great.xox

December 16, 2008

For the last few days things have been cooling off a little in my studio, orders are back to normal after 6 weeks of craziness and I finally have a little more time to create some new items for the shop, I have been wanting to add earrings to my line of jewelery and that's what I've been doing this week. When I get into something it's really hard to stop but the next few days will be dedicated to cleaning and organizing the house for our guests, my sister and brother in-law and 3 nieces are arriving on Thu. night and my in-laws on Saturday! what fun, I miss them all sooo much! we will be playing musical rooms...everyone will be shifting a room to accommodate all the guests (we will be 12!!) so you can imagine there's a lot going on here! I even cleaned the fridge today! tomorrow is deep cleaning downstairs, linen and laundry room organizing and if there is time I will organize the kitchen drawers a little too, Thu. is the upstairs, bedrooms and bathroom and I am planning on some cooking and baking, once they are all here it's really easy, everyone cooks and we just really take it easy and love to spend time together.God I'm rambling...sorry!Here are some photos of a few new earrings available in my shop:

I have been working away all week,trying to come up with some new designs amidst holiday orders, decorating,baking, cooking, and family coming! here are some glimpses of my messy table:

can you spot my boys?

Above my head (that's me at 16 on the right and my gorgeous grandma on the left)

A little fashion inspiration on the back wall:

And some new designs: A very tiny red vintage cabochon charm necklace on a delicate gold chain, I can imagine it on a lovely teen:

A long chain with a big vintage bird pendant and a few vintage dangling beads for her mom...:these are both one- of- a- kinds, you can get them here and don't forget to use the promo code NEST for 10% discount!xox

December 09, 2008

Did I ever show you photos of my photo styling? it's been a while and these photos can be seen on my web page, but I just thought it might be fun to post them again, I've worked as a Fashion and Lifestyle Photo Stylist for more then 20 years, loved every second of it and still do, as a matter of fact I will be doing a photo shoot in January! yey! I really missed it!Here are a few photo shoots from when I lived in Israel and was the Creative Director and Stylist of a very popular Woman's magazine there:

A prairie look 2004

Romantic Fairies... ( in this shoot I also made all the accessories and art myself...was so much fun!)

Here is an Ethnic-chic inspired shoot I styled

And just one last one we shot in the circus:

(Photographers: Y.Halperin, Ido Lavie.)

Have you noticed the Hebrew lettering in some of them? I hope I didn't bore you to much with my work...Have a great rest of the week!xox

December 06, 2008

Yes, these are photos from last year, I still haven't had time to put our decorations up this year, I've been crazy busy fulfilling a ton of orders after getting some seriously wonderful press coverage this month, first of all I got mentioned in The daily Candy which was huge, then my Lucy Dreamcatcher got featured in Cookie Magazine!!! to top it all off, Yvonne from Yvestown did a little interview with me, you can read it here... all soooo exciting, thank you, thank you, thank you! so, yes I have been working around the clock to get all those orders out before the Holidays and as someone said to me today, there are elves and they are living in Shelburne Vermont....So, here are some photos from last year, we had a ton of snow then, none now,though we are expecting some this week, you can imagine how hard it is for Vermonters to be with out snow in Dec. but tomorrow I am going to take a break and put them all up including some new surprises!Our front door:I've been making these fabric wreaths as Holiday gifts this year too: